Gary Shaffer, sailing his half-tonner Secrets, who won the Class 1 trophy in Crouch Yacht Club's Autumn series, which ended last month, put himself in with a chance of an end-of-season double when he took the honours in the third of the Nutcracker Trophy races on Sunday.

Secrets finished in front of Reaction (Malcolm Hutchings) and Fiddler (Kevin Munnich) in the Class 2 fleet.

Polaris, the Stella of Mick Willett, Mike Nash and Rona Thompson, the overall leaders, could manage only sixth place, a huge disappointment after their previous two victories.

In Class 1, Ian Hart, on Ace of Hearts, missed the opportunity of taking control of the series when he was forced to retire.

It allowed Holographic to move into contention for overall honours, Len Baker's yacht clinching victory ahead of Mike Owers, on Quiet Fizzer, with Charlie Mills, on Shoot the Bar, third.

Alan Bartlett's Inn Spirit, being helmed by Mike Harrison, is still in the hunt for honours after finishing fourth.

Dave Griffiths, of Harlow Blackwater Sailing Club just missed out in the two-pronged fast handicap battle with two Southend-based sailors when the club's winter series, organised jointly with Maylandsea Bay Yacht Club, came to a close with the final two races at the weekend.

Two Merlin Rockets from Halfway Yacht Club took first and second in the first race in the shape of Richard Metcalfe and Alan Jackson, which meant the final honours would be between these two in the final race.

In another closely-fought affair, Jackson finished ahead, giving him overall victory with seven points, two ahead of his clubmate and three better than Griffiths, despite his second place in the final outing.

In the slow handicap fleet, Maylandsea's Paul Weedon, in a Laser, maintained his dominance with a first and a second place to wrap up the title with just give points, six ahead of Simon Dayes and ten in front of Brian Sargeant, both from Maylandsea.

Stone Sailing Club's youngsters enjoyed a productive start to the first summer of the new millennium, including championship racing both in the UK and on the continent and race training with the Spanish, at Mahon Sailing Club, Menorca, which was organised by coaches of the Spanish Sailing Federation.

Stone members have been with the Royal Yachting Association national training squad during 2000 and six juniors have qualified for the RYA Eastern Regional team. Who knows, there may be a budding Olympic champion in the making?

Stone's junior programme has, in fact, been so successful that the club have been able to purchase an Optimist class dinghy for use by their young sailors.

The Optimist was chosen because it allows children as young as six years old to be taught how to helm.

The annual exchange visits between Mahon and Stone is an ongoing success story. It was instigated by Helen Kimber and there is now an enthusiastic back-up team of British and Spanish parents who get involved each year.

The exchange covers race training, studies of sailing, cultural understanding and knowledge of the difference in language and history.

In the summer of 2001, the Mahon children will be visiting Stone for a ten-day stay.

Results

Crouch YC Nutcracker Trophy: Race 3 - Class 1: 1 Holographic (L Baker), 2 Quiet Fizzer (M Owers), 3 Shoot the Bar (C Mills). Class 2: Secrets (G Shaffer), 2 Reaction (M Hudchings), 3 Fiddler (K Munnich).

Harlow Blackwater SC/Maylandsea Bay YC Winter Series - Race 4, Fast handicap: 1 R Metcalfe (Merlin Rocket, Halfway YC), 2 A Jackson (Merlin Rocket, HYC), 3 P Church (RS400, HBSC).

Slow handicap: 1 P Weedon (Laser, MBYC), 2 S Dayes (Finn, MBYC), 3 B Sargeant (Laser, MBYC). Race 6, Fast handicap: 1 A Jackson, 2 D Griffiths (Contender, HBSC), 3 R Metcalfe. Slow handicap: 1 D Dixon (Finn, Stone SC), 2 P Weedon, 3 B Sargeant.

Overall - Fast handicap: (1) A Jackson 7 points, (2) R Metcalfe 9 points, (3) D Griffiths 10points. Slow handicap: (1) P Weedon 5 points, (2) S Dayes 11 points, (3) B Sargeant 15 points.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.